Geffrye Chaucer, the worthiest flower Of English Poetrie in all the Bower. So as w^{th} hym we maye compare W^{th} Italy for Poet rare. Dant, nor Boccace, nor Petracqu fyne, But Chaucer he w^{th} them may syng. W^{th} woords so fitt and sense so deepe, His matters all he can so riepe, The Muses nyne, I thynck their teats To his sweete lypps did sweetly reatch. As Plato, in his cradle Nest, Is saied of Bees to haue bene blest. So as, by Nature, noe man can, W^{th}out rare guyst, prove such a man. The rare euents that haue bene sence, O how they call for his defence! Though many one hath done his parte, Yett he alone had toucht the harte. Sith he then is so peereles fownd, For hym lett bee the Laurell crowne, And all the Birds of pleasaunt laye, Therein lett them both syng and playe, As itt weare ioygnyng all there noats, W^{th} his sweet music and records. O that, as nowe he sounds w^{th} penn, His lyvely voice myght sownd agayne. But Natures debt we must pay all, And soe he hath, and soe we shall. Though for his other parts of grace Chaucer will live and shewe his face. T. A. S. * * * * * Minor Notes. "_Le Balafré._"--I was surprised to see that Miss Strickland, in the three volumes published of the _Lives of the Queens of Scotland_, always ascribes this well-known sobriquet to Francis, second Duke of Guise, instead of his son Henry, third duke. This is a mistake which I should have thought the merest tyro in history could not have committed about persons of so much note, and affords another instance of what Messrs. Macaulay and Alison had already exemplified, that writers of the most profound research will often err as to matters which lie, as it were, on the very surface. J. S. WARDEN. _Macpherson's "Ossian."_--It would appear as if Macpherson had picked up his information about British history in the pages of a kindred spirit, Geoffrey of Monmouth, for certainly he could have found in no other writer that Caracalla and Carausius were cotemporaries. J. S. WARDEN. {202} _Epitaph from Tichfield._--The curious epitaph which I inclose was copied, as closely as possible, from a monument in Tichfield Church, Hants. You may perhaps think it worthy of a place in "N. & Q." "The Hvsband, speakinge trewly of his Wife, Read his losse in hir death, hir praise in life.